Say “Fees!” PETA Ordered To Pay Costs

In our recent newsletter, we told the tale of Naruto, the selfie-snapping crested macaque. In a nutshell: the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (“PETA”) argued before the US courts that monkeys are capable of owning copyright in their own capacity and, for that reason, Naruto should be regarded as the owner of copyright in the photographs that he had snapped – and not Mr David Slater, the photographer who complied a book of those photographs.

In a no-nonsense, firm judgment on the matter, a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied both parties’ request for the case to be dismissed, and for their out-of-court settlement to be honoured. Instead, the court handed down judgment saying that monkeys cannot own copyright. To add insult to injury, PETA was ordered to pay costs.

[Readers will be interested to know: in South Africa, it is uncontentious that animals do not have the capacity to hold intellectual property rights. Only in America …]